enabled them to forecast the future and made them susceptible to grand ideas. The masses had a confused sense of Webster's greatness; but it did not win them. It served rather to emphasize the difference between him and themselves. Webster's devotion to national unity seemed, in great measure, to arise from a contemplation of the country's destined place in the world's history. It was the greatness yet to come that he beheld, and by which he was inspired. Jackson's interest in national unity, on the contrary, seemed to grow out of his regard for the people then living, his contemporaries. It was their will that he consulted, and their plaudits that he cared for. To the people, Webster's claims seemed based on his superiority to themselves; Jackson's, on his devotion to themselves. Their decision could not be doubtful. The result was that Jackson became, to a degree never realized by any other man in our history, the trusted leader and teacher of the masses. Of this relationship Sumner says: "Jackson came into power as the standard-bearer of a new upheaval of democracy and under a profession of new and fuller realization of the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican principles." Also: "One can easily discern in Jackson's popularity an element of instinct and personal recognition by the mass of the people. They felt: 'He is one of us.' 'He stands by us.' Very explicit on this point is von Holst: "Jackson was the man of the masses, because of his origin and his whole course of development, both inner and outer, he belonged to them." " Most felicitous is the statement of Jackson's political relation to the people: "The supporters of his policy were the instincts of the masses; the sum and substance of it, the satisfaction of these instincts." This intimate relation to the people, and this unparalleled power over the people, Jackson used to impress upon them his own love of the Union and his own hatred of sectionalism. The victory at New Orleans and the proclamation to the people of South Carolina in 1832 1 Sumner, Jackson, 136. 3 Von Holst, II, 3. 4 Von Holst, II, 31. are the two facts which did most to reveal Jackson's personality, and they are altogether national facts. The one portrays him as the defender of the nation against foreign enemies; the other, against sectionalism. His character was altogether national. It is easy to think of Calhoun as a Southerner and a South Carolinian; but it would not be easy to think of Jackson as belonging to Tennessee or to the border States. The distribution of his support in the election of 1832 is instructive. New Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania, as well as Tennessee, Georgia and Missouri, were Jackson's States. He was not looked upon as the representative of any particular section. His policy as President showed no trace of sectionalism. Its aim was the welfare of the masses irrespective of section. To him state lines had little meaning; sectional lines, absolutely none. There is another way in which he rendered great though unconscious service to the cause of national unity: he made the government, hitherto an unmeaning abstraction, intelligible and attractive to the people. Bagehot says: "The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other." 1 The chief value, then, of Jackson's political career, was its educational effect. His strong conviction of the national character of the Union, his brave words and acts in behalf of the rights of the Union, sank deep into the hearts of followers and opponents. The fact of national unity grew more real and attractive through his definition and defence. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that it was Jackson who made "peaceable" secession impossible. The spirit of Jackson's administration as a whole, the acts through which he influenced most deeply and permanently the political character of the people, are ir accord with his resistance to nullification. Their tendency was to nationalize. The greatness of his service was hidden for a time. Section 1 English Constitution, 101. alism, under the influence of slavery and the agitation against slavery, developed rapidly in the North as well as in the South; but when the doubtful struggle began, it was in obedience to the teachings of Jackson that the Northern Democrats put aside their scruples against "coercion," and resolutely engaged in the war for the Union. Had it not been for him, the issue of the conflict between 1861 and 1863 might well have been other than it was. VIII THE WHIG PARTY1 WHIG PARTY, in America, a political party prominent from about 1824 to 1854.2 T HE FIRST national party system of the United States came to an end during the second war with Great Britain. The destruction of the Federalist party through a series of suicidal acts which began with the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798, and closed with the Hartford Convention of 1814-1815, left the Jeffersonian Republican (Democratic) party in undisputed control. When, after Waterloo, Napoleon ceased to disturb the relations of the New World with the Old, the American people, freed for the first time from all trace of political dependence on Europe, were at liberty to shape their public policy in their own way. During the period of rapid internal development which followed after 1815, the all-inclusive Republican party began gradually to disintegrate and a new party system was evolved each member of which was the representative of such groups of ideas and interests, class and local, as required the support of a separate party. This work of disintegration and rebuilding proceeded so slowly that for more than a decade after the Peace of Ghent each new party, disguised during the early stages of organization as the personal following of a particular leader or group of leaders, kept on calling itself Republican. It was not until late in the 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, eleventh edition, Vol. XXVIII, p. 589, 1910 1911. 2 Immediately before the War of Independence and during the war those who favored the colonial cause and independence were called "Whigs." administration of John Quincy Adams, 1825 to 1829, that the supporters of the President and Henry Clay, the Secretary of State, were first recognized as a distinct party and began to be called by the accurately descriptive term National Republicans. But after the party had become consolidated, in the passionate campaign of 1828, and later in opposing the measures of President Jackson, it adopted in 1834 the name Whig, which, through memorable associations both British and American, served as a protest against executive encroachments, and thus facilitated union with other parties and factions, such as the anti-Masonic party, that had been alienated by the high-handed measures of President Jackson. The new name announced not the birth but the maturity of the party, and the definite establishment of its principles and general lines of policy. The ends for which the Whigs labored were: first, to maintain the integrity of the Union; second, to make the Union thoroughly national; third, to maintain the republican character of the Union; fourth, while utilizing to the full the inheritance from and through Europe, to develop a distinctly American type of civilization; fifth, to propagate abroad by peaceful means American ideas and institutions. Among the policies or means which the Whigs used in order to realize their principles were the broad construction of those provisions of the federal Constitution which confer powers on the national government; protective tariffs; comprehensive schemes of internal improvements under the direction and at the cost of the national government; support of the Bank of the United States; resistance to many acts of President Jackson as encroachment by the executive on the legislative branch of the government and therefore hostile to republicanism; coalition with other parties in order to promote national as opposed to partisan ends; resort to compromise in order to allay sectional irritation and compose sectional differences; and cordial and yet prudent expression of sympathy with the liberal movement in other lands. The activity of the Whig party, reckoned from the election of 1824, when its organization began, to the repeal of the |
